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It was supposed to be her “47 percent” moment. When Hillary Clinton said that half of Donald Trump’s supporters belonged in a “basket of deplorables,” Republicans thought they just might have found her campaign-crushing-blunder. The gaffe, they hoped, was a way to cement an image as an out-of-touch snob, just as Democrats did four years ago to Mitt Romney after he said “47 percent” of voters backed President Barack Obama because they were “dependent on government.” But a new Associated Press-GfK poll finds that Clinton’s stumble didn’t have quite the impact that Trump and his supporters wanted. Instead, it’s TrumpRead More

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump is seeking to show law-and-order toughness along with empathy for African-Americans as he criticizes violent protests stemming from another fatal police shooting of a black man. His Democratic opponent, Hillary Clinton, was behind closed doors as she prepared for their initial debate and did not address on Thursday the escalating racial tensions in Charlotte, North Carolina. The city was under a midnight curfew after two previous nights of chaotic protests that led to one death as well as injuries, arrests and vandalism. Trump has spent the last several weeks asking black Americans for their supportRead More

It doesn’t matter what President Barack Obama says these days, his listeners are bound to hear two words: Donald Trump. With his proclivity for dominating the conversation, the Republican presidential nominee is forcing Obama’s final few months to be viewed almost entirely through the prism of campaign politics. As Obama carries out his presidential duties, voters can’t help but wonder what the role would look like if it were inhabited by the brash billionaire. At the United Nations this week, Trump trailed the president both metaphorically and physically, as world leaders took stock of what a dramatic shift a TrumpRead More

Democrat Hillary Clinton, suddenly vulnerable in the presidential race, is under pressure to deliver a strong performance against Republican Donald Trump in their first debate on Monday, a moment that could be the most consequential yet of the 2016 election. Political veterans involved in preparing for past presidential debates said Clinton should drive home how she would run the country during uncertain times and draw a contrast as the steady, experienced alternative to the untested Trump. For his part, Trump needed to show enough gravitas to convince skeptics that he is ready to be commander in chief, they said. TheRead More

Hillary Clinton is reserving $30 million in digital advertising as she seeks to connect with young voters. The campaign said it was investing in digital advertising during the final stretch of the campaign because young people increasingly get their news online, rather than through live television. Seeking to reach young voters — including young African-Americans and Latinos — they’ll be placing ads on outlets like YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, CNN, Vice, Spotify, Pandora, Univision, Telemundo, BET and The Root. Clinton has struggled to win support from millennial voters, who were part of President Barack Obama’s winning coalition in 2008 and 2012,Read More

Republican Marco Rubio, the failed U.S. presidential contender, is battling to hold on to his U.S. Senate seat from Florida in what is shaping up to be the costliest congressional contest of 2016. More than $33 million has been raised and over $24 million spent so far by both parties in the Florida race, according to the latest U.S. Federal Election Commission data. That high price tag testifies, in part, to Rubio’s success in building a national fundraising base as a presidential candidate, even though he was trounced in his own backyard by eventual nominee Donald Trump in the state’sRead More

Donald Trump swooped into Gary, Indiana, on his private jet and pledged to make the down-on-its-luck city great again. It was 1993, and the New York mogul was wooing officials in the mostly black city to support his bid to dock a showboat casino along a Lake Michigan shoreline littered with shuttered factories. Trump and his representatives later told state gaming officials he would leverage his “incomparable experience” to build a floating Shangri-La, with enough slot machines and blackjack tables to fill city coffers and local charities with tens of millions each year, while creating scores of well-paid jobs forRead More

Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton say they raised record amounts of money in August for their presidential bids — a total of $233 million just in one month. And wealthy donors are pouring millions of dollars more into outside groups involved in the race for the White House and Senate contests. Many of those groups, along with the presidential campaigns, are due to report the details of their late summertime fundraising and expenses to federal regulators on Tuesday. Here are some takeaways from the reports: __ TRUMP MANAGER SUPER PAC PAYMENT A firm headed by Trump’s campaign manager, Kellyanne Conway,Read More

Hillary Clinton spent $645,000 more a day than her opponent Donald Trump last month, but even with her $50 million campaign outlay, she has not been able to pull away from him in the race for the White House. Clinton’s campaign had its most expensive month to date in August, eclipsing its previous monthly high by more than $12 million. And combined, Clinton and the national Democratic Party paid out $78 million in August, while Trump and the Republican National Committee spent about $47 million. While both candidates are raising huge sums from donors, their lopsided spending lays bare theRead More

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump has been a hit with small donors, raking in two-thirds of his individual campaign contributions in sums of $200 or less, according to financial disclosures filed on Tuesday. But with the big-money donor class, the players Trump blasted during the primary season as greedy influence peddlers, the celebrity businessman has fallen short of expectations, the disclosures filed with the federal government showed. Trump took in 65 percent of his total $75 million in individual campaign contributions from people who pitched in $200 or less, but Super PAC contributions fell short of expectations. Great America PAC,Read More